Hey guys, I've been working on a short horror story for a bit and decided to post it here for some feedback. It's not the best thing I've written, but I'm trying to get back into the swing of things and decided a scary story usually helps out. If y'all like it or hate it just tell me yo.

I have a scary story I’d like to tell all of you.

It’s nothing horrifyingly gruesome or anything, but there was an event back in my childhood that has haunted me ever since it happened. The images and sounds are still so crisp in my memory that it sometimes feels like it only happened yesterday.

Of course, it is hard to remember the exact age I was when it all took place, but I believe I was somewhere around nine to ten years old. Back then I was sort of an outcast in my class since I didn’t enjoy girly things like dress up or princesses. Many of the girls avoided me and called me names behind my back. However, I ended up being super popular with the boys as a result. We talked about the newest video game releases, our favorite super heroes, and all that good stuff.

Like any tomboy, I would always be trying to prove that I’m far tougher than the boys in my class. You could find me jumping off high places, eating gross things on the playground, and even taking the occasional punch or two to show that I was indeed far tougher than them. I was up for any challenge so long as it made everyone respect me and my boyish ways.

Most of this back story stuff is just to give you an idea of who I was back then and why I made some of the stupid decisions I did.

It was a cool summer night, school had ended about 3 weeks ago and I was relaxing without anything to do. Most of my friends were either not at home or not really interested in hanging out as of late, so I was cooped up in the house with nothing to do.

Now, I should probably mention here that we had also just moved to a neighborhood closer to my then current school. The big problem was, we weren’t exactly the rich type. It had taken us almost all our money to get into this cheap, but fairly nice, house. As a result, the next few months were like hell on us, with days where we’d have little to no food in order to pay off our bills.

My parents though, they loved me dearly and felt bad that I was all by myself in this new house. While I was still close to my friends, I was no longer in walking distance and could only really see them at school or when we had rides to each other’s houses. As a result, they did something really stupid to make me feel better. They bought me a Super Nintendo Entertainment System, which I had desperately been wanting ever since it came out. Of course, I wouldn’t be getting anything for my birthday or Christmas, but I was more than ok with that.

They brought it out to me while I was lying on the couch, looking at the ceiling. I screamed in delight and gave them both the biggest hugs I could. I knew what this big of a purchase meant to them, but I was also a kid who just got a SNES. I immediately asked if I could play it in the living room, which they said yes to. I plugged it all in, with help from my dad, and turned it on. Super Mario World appeared on the screen and I gazed at its glory.

However, before I could start the game, the phone rang. My mother picked it up and I noticed the color drain from her face. She whispered something to my dad, who also began to share her color, and turned to me. “You’re a big girl now Jess (Not my real name), and I believe you’re big enough to be fine on your own right? Mommy and I have to go somewhere real quick and we need you to stay here and watch the house for us. You’ll get to stay up late and play your new game too!” My mother already had her clothes on and was rushing out the door to start the car.

My dad gave me a kiss and ran around the house to make sure everything was locked. Then, he got his things together and ran out the door, locking it behind him. All of these events happened so fast that my head was spinning at that point. I looked around the now empty house and decided to try out my new game.

Only later would I find out exactly why my parents left. Grandma was hit by a massive heart attack and my parents decided to meet her at the hospital. They didn’t want to bring me since, well, watching a loved one near death isn’t exactly a great thing to bring your child to I suppose. She lived through it, but died 5 years later from another heart attack.

Anyhow, the game was great. I had so much fun going through the first part of the game, but got stuck pretty fast on some of the midgame levels. Soon, I noticed it was already getting super late. My parents hadn’t come back yet, and it was way past my bedtime. I was tired, my eyes slowly starting to shut. Before I could get up to turn the system off though, the lights went out.

For a moment, I saw nothing but the dim moonlight on the wall in front of me. I wanted to scream, but knew that only a wimp would scream at a simple power outage. Yet, something made me feel really uneasy about it. Perhaps it was just the idea of being alone in the darkness, with no parents to rush to your aid if you need help.

Either way, I had saved before the game turned off, so I could go to bed at ease. I felt my way to my room and shut the door behind me. I couldn’t see much in the dark, but I got on my pajamas and crawled into bed. The house was locked down and I could just sleep until my parents got home. They’d fix it, and in the morning I could go back to playing.

As I slowly began to doze off, I suddenly heard a faint thud coming from another part of the house. I sat up, puzzled as to if I had actually heard it or not. For about five minutes I waited and listened for another sound. I told myself that there was no way I had actually heard it, but soon enough there it was again, another small thud coming from somewhere in the house.

Panic began to rise in me, my memories of horror movies and violent serial killers came to mind and I hid under my covers. I wanted to just scream and run out the door, but I also didn’t want to be a chicken and be the little girl who ran out of the house cause she heard a noise. For all she knew, it could have just been the moving boxes that hadn’t been unpacked yet settling.

At that moment, I decided to do something really stupid. I picked up a flashlight I had in there and slowly opened the door to my room. I looked around and kept the flashlight off for the time being. My eyes at this point had adjusted and I was scanning the area ahead for any signs of movement. I tip toed out of my room and peeked my head around the corner. I could see the entire living room and down the hall to the kitchen from where I was.

Nothing really looked out of place and everything seemed identical to how I had left it. This meant that there was only a few other rooms in the house where the noise could’ve came from. Moving along, I silently made my way through the living room and down the hall. The kitchen looked fine, bathroom looked fine, and the closet was untouched. I began to become a little more at ease, especially since the noise hadn’t come back the whole time I was out there.

The only places left to check were my parent’s room and the basement. My house had my parent’s bedroom, the backdoor, and the stairs down to the basement all next to each other, so the only way to my parent’s room was to walk past the stairs. I didn’t like basements to be honest. They were always so creepy and made my skin crawl. If my parent’s room was clear, I would’ve just skipped the basement and gone back to my room.

All of the windows and doors had been shut on my way around the house, and my parent’s room was no exception. Before I could open the door though, I became paralyzed with fear. I heard a thud coming from my right and slowly turned my head. At the bottom was the door to the basement, and I knew for certain that the sound had originated from behind it. I can only image that my face had a look of pure terror on it as I stared the door down.

I knew that the basement was, for the most part, full of boxes. Anything that had been left behind or was junk, we put it down there for the time being. Even though I tried to move my legs, I couldn’t bring myself to move from my current position. A scream was making its way up my throat, but I used all the strength I could muster to keep it from coming out.

There was no question now, something was happening in my basement. I turned my flashlight on and pointed it at the door. The dull white paint shone back at me and I realized that I had to check behind that door. My instincts pleaded with me not to do it, but at the same time I thought about how chicken I would be for not at least taking a peek inside. Even though I wanted to walk down the stairs, something kept me from taking a step down.

I put my hand on the handrail and took one step forward. The stair gave a soft moan under the pressure before resting back into silence. I took another step, and another, making small amounts of progress before waiting to see what happened. Nothing made noise from behind the door, and pretty soon I was nearly in front of it. I could feel my teeth chattering from fright, a bead of sweat rolling down my forehead, my stomach heaving and nearly expelling its contents.

To be honest, I have no idea how I managed to make it down those stairs without passing out. I’ve built my back story up as being the super brave tomboy who takes on all challenges, but even I had my limits. I didn’t like horror movies, heights, or even spiders. Horror movies especially messed with me as a child. Opening a door to find a man with a knife ready to pounce on you, that’s was the exact thought going through my head when I reached out for the doorknob.

When I wrapped my hand around it, I could feel myself shaking in fear. The darkness was beginning to choke me. I gave a paranoid glance behind myself and turned back to the door, or rather my feet at the door. When I pushed the door slightly, I could feel something behind it. Not something heavy or big, but something light at the base of the door. I was puzzled, giving it a slightly harder push. I heard something scrape across the floor in the darkness. Making a big enough crack, I used my flashlight to illuminate the floor through the doorway. There, fallen across the base of the door, was a bunch of moving boxes.

Immediately I breathed a sigh of relief. All the sounds had just been a few boxes falling over one by one, probably some sloppy stacking on dad’s part or something. I pushed the door open all the way and shined my flashlight around the room. Aside from boxes stacked to the ceiling, the whole area was relatively clear, so there wouldn’t be many places to hide from the doorway. Taking a step inside, I checked around a little bit more before I noticed something sticking out of a box to my right. Picking it up, I saw that it was a framed photo of our family when we took our trip to California. Smiling, I gazed into the picture and remembered how we all had so much fun that day. Those were good times.

I decided to dig around in the box a little bit more, taking out small toys from my parent’s childhood or more photos of my family that I hadn’t seen in a while. Then, I found a small mirror that had belonged to my grandmother and that she had passed down to us. I brought the flashlight to my face to see my reflection and immediately dropped both the mirror and flashlight. In the mirror, standing directly behind me, I could clearly see a man’s face staring at me. His rough features and haunting gaze immediately threw me into a whirlwind of nightmares the moment I met his eyes.

If I had to describe him, I’d say he was more than likely in his 40s, but had the appearance of being much older than that. His hair was shaved off, but he had a brown beard that was wild and unkempt. Not long, but long enough to give it that look if you know what I mean. He looked mean, and even a little jealous. As though being in the basement was something only he deserved. The eyes though… I’ll never forget those. I could see through those eyes that there was something sinister deep inside him. Something evil, something that wanted to hurt me but couldn’t.

Dropping to the floor, I scrambled for the flashlight and turned to point it back at where the man was. As soon as I did though, the door slammed shut and I could hear heavy footsteps running up the stairs before abruptly stopping. Then, I heard the feet run down the hall, through the living room, and out the front door. I sat there, terrified out of my wits, just pointing my flashlight where he used to be.

Before I realized it, I was sobbing uncontrollably on the floor with my hands around my ears. The flashlight rolled away and rested among the broken pieces of the mirror next to me. At that point, I had been completely broken by the experience. I was no longer the strong tomboy who wanted to face every challenge head on, but the terrified girl who wanted nothing more than her parents to return home. Sadly, the nightmare wasn’t over just yet. Soon, I could hear those heavy footsteps again. This time though, they seemed to be filled with anger and hatred, as each stomp vibrated the roof above me.

Panicking, I began tossing box after box against the wall, grabbing the heaviest objects I could and stacking them against the wall. It wasn’t long before I heard him come down those steps, and I was certain the boxes alone wouldn’t keep him out. Even the lock wouldn’t be able to keep back someone with that much strength in his footsteps alone.

As soon as the door was hit, I began to scream. It was only a matter of time before the door came down and whatever was on the other side came in. I crawled into the corner and began rocking back in forth in the fetal position. I was certain that death would come any second. Before the door was torn off its hinges though, I heard the familiar hum of an engine come up our driveway. My parents were home! At the same time, the slamming against the door stopped, and whatever was there had silently disappeared.

I tore through the boxes and unlocked the door, rocketing up the stairs and slipping at the top. I scrambled to get up and ran down the hall, tearing through the front door and to my parents who were just getting out of the car.

Immediately my mother embraced me and turned to my dad, puzzled as to what was wrong with me. I began to babble about a man being in the house and that he nearly killed me while they were gone. My dad took a tire iron out of the trunk and told my mom to get to the neighbors house and call 911.

The rest of the story is pretty basic. Nothing was in the house, no signs of forced entry, not even any marks on the door I barricaded. I explained to the police everything that happened in great detail, and they told my parents they would search around the neighborhood for the guy, but that they weren’t likely to find him. By my description, he was a bum of some sort that snuck his way into my house and got spooked by me before coming back to ensure I wouldn’t be able to tell anyone what he looked like. What confused them the most though, was the fact he hadn’t stolen anything from us while he was there. There was a brand new SNES on the floor and he hadn’t even bothered to take it or even touch it.

Everything got wrapped up pretty soon, the police left, and soon we were back in the living room with the lights back on. Turns out the power going out had been a coincidence, a fuse had busted or something and showed no signs of being tampered with. Needless to say, I didn’t get any sleep for a long time. Constant nightmares bombarded my dreams and I would often wake up in a cold sweat.

I’ve seen plenty of counselors, therapists, and even psychologists to relive this moment and figure out what happened and how I could move on, but to this date I have no idea what happened that fateful night. It’s very likely I crossed paths with a home invader of some sort who was living in our house before we moved in, but something never felt right about it. His supernatural strength, that dead stare he gave me, and essentially vanishing into thin air when my parents came home has always gave me the feeling in the back of my mind that that was no ordinary human being, or even a human being at all. I never experienced anything like this again for the rest of the time I lived there, and even afterwards I don’t believe anyone reported something like this happening to them either.

I’ll leave it up to you guys to decide what really happened though. I’ve given up trying to explain this event to myself, and during the time I’ve been writing this I’ve had to get up multiple times and calm myself down before continuing. Next time you’re home alone, make sure you’re really and truly alone in your home. There’s no telling who, or what, could be hiding in the shadows.